AD Changes in Windows Server 2008

Every major release of Windows Server includes updates to the Active Directory (AD) service, which maintains information about the server and the organization’s users, computers, and applications, and the release of Windows Server 2008 is no exception. It collects many formerly separate identity and access-management services and feature packs under the AD banner. Although few organizations are likely to benefit from all the new features, most organizations will find at least one improvement valuable.

New Names for Services and Feature Packs

In Windows Server 2008, Microsoft has renamed several services to use the AD label: directory, federation, certificate, and rights management. The services themselves aren’t new—they are present in Windows Server 2003 R2 or available as feature packs. All these services will ship with Windows Server 2008.

AD, the Windows OS directory service introduced in Windows 2000 and that runs on Windows domain controllers, is now called Active Directory Domain Services (Microsoft acronym: ADDS).